NicoNico Douga has prostrated itself before the might of Japanese intellectual property cartels such as the AJA, JVA and MPAA, and Nico maintainer Dwango is now their willing and obedient slave in all matters, we hear. They have supinely expunged all content the groups deem infringing (and not just limited to anime), so they must be excused if their servers are a little bare at present.
In particular, anime producers led the efforts to subjugate the unruly user generated content company and community; the unfortunately named “Association of Japanese Animations”, counting such notables as Gonzo, Sunrise, and Ghibli amongst its ranks, stood crop in hand over the whimpering firm, and exacted the promise that all future submissions will be vetted to ensure no infringing content can be found. Via CNet.
Might this have some connection to the earlier scheme by the Japanese government to obliterate fansubbing and unauthorised sharing on video sites (ala Nico)? If so, we might expect some action on other fronts.
If only we could share information in a decentralised and anonymous fashion…
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There goes the neighborhood..
I still see lots of MADs. music and whatnot...
Lame.
There goes what respect I had for Niconico. :p
I can't believe they caved like that. Sure, if they had MPAA stuff on their blog that mattered but the issue is that they're trying to make something illegal out of something that is not.
Once its licenced, any good site would remove offending links, if it's not licenced why don't they just get off their butts and get a better goddamn business model?
If it weren't for fansub distribution, they wouldn't be making much of any cash at all on most internation distribution, since a lot of dvd sales and attendance at events is generated by free fansubs and that's doubly true for many obscure series.
Good point
>Len-Vesper
Er, NicoNico is Japanese, and this is more about the Japanese market than the North American one. Also, what else could the guy do other than rolling over and whining for mercy? Risk a lawsuit and/or even an arrest? Get into a fight he could never win? C'mon. It's sad that this happened but he had to comply.
I just hope that now that the time of the deletions is known, people will back up their works and make them available for download. There's stuff there I'd hate to lose forever.
This sort of thing is, as you say, pretty unavoidable, but personally what I find tiresome is how these sites keep refusing to innovate their way technically around these issues...
Overseas hosting, anonymous encryption, etc, etc. Not easy, but the only way to avoid becoming a sad Napster clone in the long run.
Well said!
Are we seeing the rivers of japan run red with the blood of the otaku? No?
Boring.
Nico Nico decides to vet submissions? Is that even possible? Given the number of submissions, it would take the entire Red Army to do this task!
Have they even considered that they should stop trying to put in so many censors in their broadcasts and offer over-priced dvd sets just to see the "extras?"